Winning Poems for August 2015

First Place

The first daughter’s feet were too large,
so she chopped off her toes to fit
the glass slipper, which filled with blood:
a chalice brimming with red wine.

The second daughter’s feet were small,
so she sewed her sister’s severed
toes onto her own and hobbled
to the Prince, who was not deceived.

The third daughter, in soot-smudged rags,
was summoned from the scullery;
her bare feet blistered and swollen
from dancing in cut-crystal heels.

She thought: if you do not know me without make-up, jewels and silk, then fuck you Prince so-called fucking Charming and fuck your fucking crown.

Its spell thus broken, the slipper
reverted to a grimy scrap
of thin-soled cloth, stiff as cheese rind,
from which the Prince recoiled, appalled.

It is said; white doves swooped and pecked
the sisters’ eyes out of their skulls,
leaving them blind, crippled beggars
in the care of a kitchen maid.

There were stories of a Princess
sleeping in a gateless tower,
girdled by a poison thicket:
a better prospect for true love.

I like the dark honesty, the de-Disney-fication of the language and imagery in this twist on the fairy tale(s). It has the feel of those early, macabre Grimm tales. Particularly nice sound and rhythm in “ . . . so she sewed her sister’s severed/ toes.” --C. Wade Bentley

taking care of old ladies’ yards.
He called himself a “horticulturist.”

In his pants pockets, we found sharp
stones and screws, bottle caps —

never paperclips or While You
Were Out slips. He was always Out,

on the outs with us, prone to slips
soon after dry-outs. After work,

he ate cheese and saltines,
drank a quart of Stroh’s,

smoked and yelled at whoever
was around, perpetually pissed.

His missing front tooth made him lisp
on words like “office” and “pizza.” He hated pizza.

We never had what you would call a “conversation.”

His coffin was provided by the Army.
Four of us stood in the cold, numb.

There may have been a flag.

I enjoyed the word-play in this poem, especially in the fourth and fifth stanzas, and in the double-meaning of “pissed.” The poet lays out concrete details of the father’s life as if emptying pockets, post-mortem. --C. Wade Bentley

Honorable Mention

You are not the blonde boy
crying. Running in dappled
river light, chasing tomorrow
and the toy red boat in rapids,
watching it disappear in rocks.
You are, of course, the boat.
I am the dam, or the damn fool
who bought the cheap string
when twine would have been
better you said. You are the
unused photo paper, the dead
turtle you did not feed and
the cheap football you hated.
I’m the corners you cut on your
homework, the pot plants you
skillfully grew along the fence,
the red car you crashed after
binge drinking with that girl.
I am the night you spent
in jail because I left you
there to rot you sobbed.
You are the river and I avoid
the bitter bridge we have built.
And you’re the Boy Scout compass
I still keep in my junk drawer.
And the promise I made that
you would not get my eyebrows,
that you would not become me.